Adelaide 500 Porsche Carrera Cup Round 1

Published on the 4th of March 2019 by McElrea Racing

The Adelaide 500 is always a fantastic start to our racing season providing a significant challenge for our drivers, cars and crew. We were thrilled to welcome back Pro-Am championship contenders Tim Miles and Anthony Gilbertson and welcome our 'Super-coach' Luffy back into the seat of car 7.

Warren Luff

4th, 4th, 5th - Porsche Carrera Cup 'Pro Class'

Luffy topped the times on Friday and was on target to back that up in qualifying until he was snookered by the red flag near the end of the session. He ended up qualifying 4th.

After 5 years since he last launched a Carrera Cup car, he didn’t get the best of starts and dropped a spot to Dale Wood. He had a very busy race trying to pass Wood while defending from a hard-charging Murray. He kept it all tidy to take 4th after Almond stopped with an engine issue.

In race 2 Luffy got a good start and held off a highly motivated Love into the turn 1 chicane. He did his best to pass Wood ahead, but was battling oversteer so did a solid job to keep Love behind and bag another bunch of points.

In race 3 Luffy lost a spot at the start but did a ripper job to keep the MEGA/N2C Porsche in one piece with a fired-up Almond behind him.

Tim Miles

10th, 6th, 3rd - Porsche Carrera Cup 'Pro-Am Class'

Tim was 5th in Pro-Am after practice 2. He did a terrific job in qualifying to take 2nd for an MR 1-2 in Pro-Am.

In race 1 he got a good start and took off after teammate Gilbo. They ran at the lead of the Pro-Am pack for 5 laps until Tim made a small mistake while running slightly out of rhythm and ended up in the sand pit at turn 11. He was recovered and finished the race a few laps down.

In race 2 Tim got a ripper start from the rear of the grid and made good progress until catching a defensive Lago. He tried every trick in his book but had to settle for a slightly frustrated 6th in Pro-Am.

Tim got a decent start and was able to pass Lago into turn 1. He had his sights set on passing Grove for the whole race, which he achieved at the last corner on the last lap to complete an impressive last to third from races 2 and 3.

Anthony Gilbertson

1st, 1st, 2nd - Porsche Carrera Cup 'Pro-Am Class'

Anthony had a tough 2018 at the Adelaide street circuit but made amends with the fastest Pro-Am lap-time in practice. He did a fantastic job to convert that to Pro-Am pole.

In race 1 'Gilbo' got a good start and drove a well-controlled first lap to allow some of the Pro drivers past without getting involved in a conflict. Although he had a spirited dice with Pro driver Hunt, he kept a healthy lead to the following Pro-Am drivers to take his first Carrera Cup race win.

In race 2 Gilbo had a good start and had a relatively quiet race out front of the Pro-Am field until a big moment at the treacherous turn 8. Fortunately, he was able to keep it off the wall and proceeded to take his second win for the weekend.

In race 3 Gilbo got away well and held the Pro-Am lead into turn 1. Having his eyes on the round win, he drove a nicely calculated race, letting Talbot by mid-race to take 2nd securing his second Carrera Cup round win.

Summary

We are rapt to guide Anthony to his first two Carrera Cup race wins and second round win giving him an almost perfect start to the 2019 championship. It was a feisty return to Carrera Cup from our Super-coach Warren Luff and he sits a very handy 4th in Pro class. After Tim's misfortune in race 1, he proved he and his car had race-winning pace by starting race 2 from rear-of-grid and working his way back to 3rd by the end of race 3. We are very happy to leave this notorious street circuit with all of our cars in one piece and head to the fast smooth Australian Grand Prix circuit in 2 weeks.